Then Job was there, astride the doctor, whirling a lumberjack’s axe in front of the bear’s face. The bear paused, and roared wildly. The axe flashed down, only to be struck aside by a contemptuous blow from the monster’s paw. The doctor, on all fours, was almost at Kate’s knees. Job turned to run, and the bear caught him. Ross was running wildly towards them, carrying Quick’s useless carbine. Kate brought up the silver object from the general survival box: a Very pistol.
“No,” cried Ross. “You’ll get Job.”
There came a crack from behind him, and a heavy bullet from Preston’s Weatherby smashed into the bear’s shoulder. Its head came up, great strings of saliva dripping from its jaws. It began to bend Job backwards. The rifle cracked again. Ross saw the bear’s flesh jump. It roared. Job was hissing in pain now, as the bear fought to get a crushing grip on him. Ross swung the carbine back over his shoulder like a club, then forward with all his towering strength. The stock landed with a dull thud against its wounded shoulder. The bear hurled the gasping Job away and turned. Ross smashed it over its nose and catfooted away.
CRACK! A hot wind burned past Ross’s cheek. The bear paused. Ross turned. Preston, reloading the Weatherby, Quick with a Remington 7mm Magnum. Ross ran. The bear charged. Preston fired again. The bullet mushroomed into the bear’s shoulder: it didn’t even limp.
Running on all fours, steady on the ice, it was rapidly overtaking Ross. He was at the fire when it caught up with him, rising up to its full ten feet, ready to grasp him. Quick squeezed off another shot: it didn’t even bleed.
Ross felt the heat of the metal tray at his back. He swung his left shoulder towards the blaze. The bear shambled forward a few steps. The evil head came down. He was almost overcome by the stench of rotting fish, but his left hand was in the flames now. He drove it into the heart of the fire. Someone was screaming: Kate. He jabbed forward with his right hand. The bear’s arms reached for him, the jaws drooled and snapped, inches from his face. Another bullet slammed into it. Ross saw the flesh jump. The report nearly deafened him; point blank. The bear screamed. The enormous cave of its mouth opened, blood red and terribly deep, and he lurched into action.
His left hand, black glove blazing, grasping a piece of red-hot board, reared out of the fire, over his shoulder, and down the bear’s throat. Its screams were drowned in the hiss; the smell of fish vanished under the burning. The bear reared up, its jaws snapping shut like a trap on his left arm. Ross was lifted from his feet, and hung for a moment while the jaws champed, then he dropped, and was away, his arm left dangling in the ruins of the sleeve, leaving the agonised bear. The monster, choking, coughing, tearing at the board with its paws, stumbled erect towards the water. The board came free and was flung away. Ross stood by Job, watching as it hurled itself into the sea.
“Who’d have thought a false arm could save your life?” he gasped, folding the tatters of his sleeve away from the twisted metal and torn plastic. The bear floundered through the golden ocean, raising its head every now and then to bleat.
“Hell,” said Quick, “that brute’ll never die.” Then the bear’s head suddenly jerked under the surface.
“What . . .” Warren.
The head came up again, screaming.
“Oh God,” whispered Kate, turning her face against the nearest shoulder: Ross’s. The ocean heaved. The bear’s scream choked off as it vanished again. Job’s hand was iron on Ross’s shoulder. Ross’s arm went around Kate. The bear’s head reared out of the churning water. A crimson fountain burst from its gaping mouth and arced through fifteen feet of silent air. Then it was gone.
And in the silence two things happened.
The tall triangular fin of a whale broke the surface and powered away; and Job said, “It is the Knucklebones of Sedna. May God protect us now.”
FIVE
Job woke first, and lay listening to the sounds which surrounded him: the restless hissing of the ice crystals in the wind; the sobbing of the wind in the guy ropes supporting the tent; the occasional crack as a tent panel flapped like a sail in the wind. The waves lapped at the distant edges of the ice floe; the water made tinkling sounds like tiny streams moving against the ice beneath his head. And beyond that, deep in the heart of the ocean, squeaks and clicks, gratings and groans, sobbing songs and long bubbling cries. He let their strange, heart-wrenching beauty wash over him for a moment, tempted into memories of childhood and the Hudson Bay. But he knew too well that the cries of the killers could represent a very real danger: if the whales decided there was something on the ice they wanted, they would have no hesitation in smashing the floe to pieces trying to get it. He saw again the head of the bear straining out of the water, the blood curving through the air. The bear, which they had exerted themselves to their utmost to get rid of, destroyed by these monsters in seconds.
Colin stirred, making a morning noise in his throat, halfway between a groan and a snore. He yawned.
“Morning,” said Job.
“Morning. Or is it?”
“No. It’s afternoon. About one full day since the crash.”
“Great.” Ross huddled in his sleeping bag, pulling the blankets up round his ears. Not at his best in the morning. Job smiled.
Ross stirred. “I can still hear them singing down there.”
“Yes. We’d better hope they don’t think of any reason to return.”
“God, yes!”
They lay a little longer in silence. Ross’s breathing slowly returned to the deep regularity of sleep. “Colin? Are you asleep?”
Silence.
Job lay back and half-dreamed, half-thought. There was nothing else to do. He was not going to get up until he had to because he would only get bored out there: he was used to having things to do. So were they all, he supposed. Ross certainly; Quick and Warren if he knew anything about how company research stations were run; and the woman, unless universities had changed radically since his day. He really knew nothing about the life of a pilot, but he suspected that that would be pretty busy also. And now they all had nothing to do except wait and hope. Nothing to do . . .
Soon they would talk – reveal too much about themselves and how they felt about each other. Then they would begin to spread out on the floe, wanting to keep clear of each other; but being on their own would be worse than the strains of company and, still nursing their grievances, they would drift back warily, unwillingly, like starving wolves gathering round a fire. And this period would be the most dangerous . . . He had seen it before, the ill-chosen words, the explosion of violence.
The sound of the lumberjack’s axe unsteadily wielded added itself to the others in the background of his thoughts. Someone was preparing the fire.
“Is it going yet?” Kate, in the middle distance.
“Not yet.” Doctor Warren, close at hand.
The wind made the unsteady roaring sound it makes when fanning flames.
“There.” Kate’s voice, suddenly close at hand. “Powdered eggs, water for coffee, ham.”
“Do the coffee first. I’m freezing.”
“You should have taken off your anorak and trousers when you got into your sleeping bag. I told you.”
Silence: the doctor was not used to being told off. Job smiled.
The pots and pans clinked gently against each other. The conversation dried.
Then, “Tell me about Colin Ross,” said the woman.
“Tell you what about him?”
“All about him.”
“I don’t know all about him.”
“Oh Daddy! Tell me what you do know. When did you meet him?”
“I can’t remember when I met him first. I’ve known him for years.”